Cluster Headaches

Just over a week ago I had what I thought was a really bad migraine. It was a different kind of pain, though. It was centered behind my eye and went into my teeth and jaw. Unlike migraines, being in a dark room didn't seem to help. Thankfully it went after an hour. About a week later I was woken at around 2 am by the same pain. This time, however, it was much more intense. I was restless and regardless of how much I tried I just couldn't get comfortable. In the end I was pacing up and down in the hope that the pain would go. Normally I have a reasonably high tolerance to pain but, as this had reached a 10 on the pain scale, I will admit that it did actually make me cry. I ended up in A&E but after 2.5 hours of waiting, and still no doctor, the pain had subsided and so I went home (I was extremely tired by this point). The pain came back the next day, although it was 'only' a 7, and so I returned to A&E. I had to wait about 3 hours before I finally saw the doctor. The pain had subsided again by that point but I was determined to been seen by someone.

He said that it sounded like cluster headaches (CH) and to book an appointment with my GP. He gave me some Co-Codamol in case it happened again. I had a further 3 attacks after that, the worst reaching a 9 on Tuesday but luckily I didn't have one yesterday. The doctor took some blood and I get the results back tomorrow. He told me to take Paracetamol and Ibuprofen together, but I have been speaking to some CH sufferers who have said that painkillers just won't work. If the blood tests come back as normal and I get another attack I will go back and ask for some suitable medication.

I was advised to print off a journal article and take it with me, in the hope of educating my GP a bit further with regard to CHs. It says the following:

"Cluster headache (CH) pain is considered the most severe of the primary headache syndromes and
is arguably one of the most severe pain syndromes that afflict humans."

I would say that is an accurate description of how I feel during an attack. I'm hoping that it might be viral or stress related as there is no cure for CHs and people suffer for weeks or months at a time before being pain free. Inevitably, however, the CHs will return at some point and the cycle starts over. I will update once I have the results of the blood test and/or if I have another attack.        

Disorder update

Original Post 23/11/2011

I couldn't get an appointment yesterday, by the time I got through on the phone (10 mins after they opened) all of the appointments had gone. I did get a phone appointment and the Doctor said I need to come in for a face-to-face consultation, so I have to go in this afternoon. On the plus side I think I've managed to regain control and I've had a good two days. I'll post again after my appointment.

EDIT: Well I had my appointment and the Doctor has referred me for Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. I am still waiting for my letter to find out what exactly is going to happen.

Disorder

Original Post 18/11/2011

I came to the realisation the other day that I have an eating disorder. I have always had a problem where I will binge on certain foods. I'm not talking about having a little more than I should, everyone at some point or another will over-eat. I'm talking about full-on binge sessions where I will eat 5 chocolate bars in one sitting, or a whole pizza on my own. I will eat even when I'm not hungry and if I try to stop myself I will feel depressed. I also get annoyed and then depressed after a binge eating session.

Today I remembered that when I was around 10 I used to spend all of my £5 pocket money on sweets (and those were the days when penny sweets actually cost 1p and a fiver was a fair amount of pocket money) and eat them in one sitting. I remember being weighed at some point during primary school (year 4 or 5) and one of my peers gasping at my weight (he had come over, against my will, to see what I weighed). When I got to secondary school I was very overweight. I have no idea what I weighed but I remember feeling like crap. I got to the point where I wouldn't eat breakfast or lunch and then binge when I got home as I was so hungry. I used to hide my uneaten lunch in my room so my parents wouldn't find out. They did eventually and I managed to convince them that I just wasn't hungry. In reality I think I had convinced myself I wasn't hungry, but I just didn't want to eat around other people. One of my first memories is walking home from school with my mum and she had bought me an ice cream. Everyone else was having those 10p ice lollies but I had a full-size Magnum and I remember one of my classmates gasping when he saw what I had. My mum had/has a real problem with saying no to me and whilst I don't blame her I think this has had a big impact on my problems now. By the time I started uni I was a relatively normal weight. By the time I finished I had eaten my way to being 5 stone over weight. I have lost 4.5 stone of that weight but now my grip on the situation is slipping. I am really sacred of ending up where I started. I am by no means happy with myself at the moment but I am happier than I was a year and a half ago.

I think that maybe I felt slightly neglected as a child as my parents were constantly having to sort out problems with my Brother's children, and so food became a comfort. This is the only thing I can think of for my eating habits now. I have decided to make an appointment to see the Doctor in the hope I can get some help, and I'll blog again after.

Weight loss Update II

Original Post 10/04/2011

Well the last update I made wasn't entirely accurate. I went a bit mad over Christmas and gained about 8 lbs! It took longer than I thought (and wanted) to get back to 14 stone 7 lb. Progress was slow so now I have joined a group. This is helping a lot as I now get access to the Slimming World website which has lots of useful information. The recipes section is particularly good and the syns calculator is handy. I worked out how many syns I used to eat on average and it was slightly shocking. On SW you are allowed between 5 and 15 syns per day. I used to eat 180 syns per day before! No wonder I ended up about 5 stone over weight. Anyway, since joining the group I have lost 1 stone. I stayed the same last week but since the two weeks before that I lost a total of 9 lbs I'm not annoyed. I decided to have some pick 'n' mix yesterday which would have been over my syns but I'm not going to dwell on it. I'd rather that than blow a whole day or worse on eating crap.

I'm still on target to reach my goal of 12 stone by July. That means I need to lose a little under 2 lb per week which I think is achievable. I'm going to join the Uni gym tomorrow as the membership is cheap over the summer. It works out at about £12 per month which is good. Hopefully exercising will speed up the weight loss and make sure I reach my target on time. Below are my weight loss statistics so far:

Weight loss - 48 lbs, (3 stone 6 lb), (21.77 kg)

Weight loss % - 20.08

BMI 25.9 (nearly into the normal range!)

Weight to target - 1 stone 9 lb.

Customer Services IV - update

Original Post 11/02/2011


Well I finally got a reply from Amazon, one month after I sent my letter. They have refunded the P and P charge but are refusing to cover the other costs. I replied saying that I wasn't happy about this and issued them a letter before action (before you start a small claims court action). They still refused to cover the costs. I have shopped with them for at least 8 years but that has now ended. I have spent literally thousands with them over that time and they are quibbling over about £40. I have told them this and have demanded a reply from their MD who sent an email in December saying that they would 'make sure' Xmas orders would be delivered on time. According to the Oxford English dictionary the term 'make sure' is to 'establish that something is definitely so ; confirm:' which essentially guaranteed that my order would arrive before Xmas. This clearly didn't happen and they are refusing to man up and take responsibility. Obviously any company would take all the orders they could over Xmas as it's the busiest time of the year, but if they fail to deliver on time then they should be liable. I suggest that you think twice about shopping with Amazon over the Xmas period and if you see that Citylink are going to deliver your package then cancel the order straight away.

Customer Services IV

Original Post 13/01/2011

Well I decided to order a new TV in December. I've had a Playstation 3 for a while and wanted to make the most of the blu-rays that I have. I looked around and decided on the Sony KDl-46EX503. Amazon had it for the cheapest price and if you ordered before the 24th December you could claim the VAT back, which worked out at about £100. I placed the order on the 16th and paid extra for quicker delivery. Now the weather wasn't very good across the whole of the UK during December. There was lots of snow that caused the roads to grind to a halt. Despite this, Amazon guaranteed to deliver all pre-Christmas deliveries on or before the 24th December. The TV left Amazon on the 19th and was being sent by Citylink. I checked the Citylink website and the tracking info said it would be delivered between 07:30 and 17:30 on the 21st. On the day I checked the website again and it still said it was going to be delivered on the 21st, even though it wasn't 'out for delivery'. I tried to get hold of Citylink by phone but they had an automated message saying they were receiving too many calls to take my call. I sent an email but didn't get a reply. Despite the tracking info saying it would be delivered nothing arrived. I waited in the next day, tried to get hold of them via phone and email but still no delivery or reply. On the 23rd I managed to get through on the phone (they were taking calls if you repeatedly tried and were lucky enough to get through) and was told it was at the Ashford depot for delivery. I drove to the depot to collect it (which is about a ~ 67 mile round trip ) and was told it was still 'somewhere in the Midlands' and they had no idea when it would arrive. I managed to get hold of the head office number and called them on the 24th as the tracking still hadn't updated, and still said they would deliver on the 21st. I was told that it definitely wouldn't arrive in time for Christmas as it was at the Coventry depot. I offered to make the 400 mile round trip to Coventry to collect it but they said they have no idea where in the warehouse the package would be, so I'd have to wait for it to arrive at Ashford. I asked if they would give me a specified delivery time when it did finally arrive as a gesture of goodwill and to save me waiting in all day and the supervisor said she'd monitor the situation and contact me when it arrived. Now Christmas day was a Saturday and as the Monday and Tuesday were Bank Holidays Citylink weren't open again until the Wednesday. I checked the tracking info all day Wednesday and still no change so I called the main enquiries number. I was told that it had definitely now arrived at the Ashford depot and was scheduled for delivery but until it was loaded onto a van she couldn't say when it would be delivered. Ecstatic that it had finally made it to somewhere local, I called the Ashford depot to confirm I could collect it. Imagine my annoyance when I found out that it was still in Coventry. I asked to speak to the depot manager to get him to find out where it was but he was 'unavailable', as was every other manager at the depot. Probably because they were fed up with pissed off Customers.  I called head office again to try to find out where the TV was and when it would arrive. They said it was still in Coventry as there was a 5 day backlog at the Ashford depot. I asked them what a '5 day backlog means' as it had been sat at Coventry for 7 working days so surely it should have moved by now. All they could say was that there was a 5 day backlog and it should be delivered 'soon'. I asked was it likely that it would be delivered for the new year and they said no. By this point I am indescribably pissed off. They were blaming Amazon for accepting orders that they couldn't fulfil.  I don't see how Citylink managed to end up with a backlog. If they couldn't deliver to people so surely they couldn't collect from Amazon at the same time? If there was any kind of backlog it would be at Amazon. I'm assuming this is also true as the TV wasn't dispatched until two days after I ordered it. I have no idea what the hell Citylink were playing at though. It's absolutely outrageous that they weren't taking calls in the lead-up to Christmas and never bothered to reply to my emails. Now before you say that 'it's not just Citylink that had the problems it was all the couriers' there are hundreds of post saying that deliveries with Royal Mail, FedEx etc. were delivered fine. People are STILL reporting that guaranteed next day delivery items aren't being delivered even now and the snow has been gone for weeks!

Two such forums are posted below.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/forum/cd/discussion.html?ie=UTF8&cdForum=Fx2VNIOBYFU5MPA&asin=B001DTETLS&cdThread=Tx9I9WMV3SVL17

http://www.reviewcentre.com/reviews93418.html

The TV finally arrived on Monday 3rd January. Normally I would have praised them for delivering on a bank holiday but this is the least they should have done. I was out when they tried to deliver it so they left it with a neighbour. I wasn't very happy about this but at least I got it eventually. Obviously the supervisor who said she'd call me when it had arrived at Ashford never did. I doubt there is anyone at that useless company that can do their jobs properly.

This is by far the worst example of customer service I have received. I spent about £15 on phone calls just for them to tell me they couldn't take my call. It also cost around £25 petrol for the wasted journey to the Ashford depot based on false information (I'd go so far as to say outright lying to get me off the phone). They have blatantly lied to me on multiple occasions. I have written to Amazon requesting they reimburse the out-of-pocket expenses and have a week left to reply to me. I'll update you when I have a reply.

Weight Loss Update

Original Post 04/01/2011

Well it's been a while since the last update so I thought I'd post a quick update. My most current weight is 14st 7lb which means I have lost 2.5 stone. The diet is going well and I plan to be at my intial target weight of 12 stone by the Summer.

I'll blog again soon with more details of the progress so far.